Have you ever wondered which languages dominate our digital and real-life conversations? It's a fascinating mix that mirrors our diverse world, and today, we're diving into the colourrful mosaic of languages that connect us online and offline.
The lovely folk at @Statista (statista.com) have released a fascinating statistic about the languages we used in real life and the most used language on the Internet.... Take a look here:
English reigns supreme online ! Acting as the bridge connecting different corners of the world. Whether you're tweeting, blogging, or coding, English, it seems, is the go to language.
According to the report by Felix Richter @Statista (21st February), English is the internet’s lingua franca, connecting people from all over the world. He also tells us that according to estimates from W3Techs, more than half of all websites use English as their content language - that's incredible!
Another estimate from Ethnologue, a research centre for language intelligence, says that roughly 1.46 billion people speak English around the world, of which approcximately 380 million are native speakers.
That makes English the most spoken language worldwide when including non-native speakers, ahead of Mandarin Chinese, which is spoken by roughly 1.14 billion people worldwide, including 940 million native speakers.
But.......the 1.46 billion people who speak English still make up less than 20 percent of the world population, meaning that roughly 4 in 5 people in the world are still unable to understand 50 percent of all websites, at least without a translation tool.
(Source: statista.com)
What is also interesting is the prevalence of other langauges in real life, but the chart shows, some widely-spoken languages, such as Chinese, Hindi and Arabic, are underrepresented on the internet, while others such as English, German and Russian have a larger footprint online than they have in the real world.
It's truly amazing how languages evolve and adapt, creating a global network of communication. Whether we're clicking away on our keyboards or chatting away in cafés, the languages we speak shape our connections and experiences. So, although it's English that is still the main language of the world, let's celebrate this diversity that brings us together, making our global village a little cozier and a lot more interesting.
And why not book your free English language level assessment now - no obligation, no spammy emails, no constant selling.....just an opportunity to talk to one of the ME+U team and learn what you need to do next to get your English going!